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2013-12-29 - Plans and Misunderstandings
<< Follows: Never According to Plan Continued In: Overwhelmed >> Damian had headed up to his room directly from the cave last night, and to the surprise of everyone actually stayed there, neither sneaking out or going to Carrie's room as had become his habit, as well as the worst kept secret in the manor. In the morning Damian was on hand to join Carrie for training and after lunch, he trained on his own upstairs, avoiding the Cave, because /he/ would be there, the thing that youthful shadow of the Father he had both worshiped and loathed these months since he was freed from the League. Tired, dressed in a white tank top and jogging pants Damian has come into the kitchen looking for something to eat. There is no dinner ready tonight a sign of the chaos that has gripped the manor since last night, so Damian forks leftovers onto his plate and heads to the microwave. The boy's moves tensely and his eyes are distant, lost in thought. Having not gotten any sleep that night, Dick is certainly weary, both mentally and physically. It was a day off for him, so he had /that/ going for him. Still wearing the clothes he attempted to sleep in, Haven county sweats and t-shirt, he shambles into the kitchen, not having left his room all day. Like Damian, he goes to the fridge and pulls out some leftovers, but instead of reheating, he just puts them on his plate, grabs a cup of water, and a fork, and sits down to begin eating. Damian eyes Dick cautiously as the other man enters the kitchen and loads his plate with food and eats. Seeing that there is no yelling coming, at least not yet, Damian relaxes and waits for the microwave to beep before he grabs his plate and a coke and sits down across from Dick. Damian eats in silence for a while before he looks across the table at Dick "So, has a plan been formulated?" he challenges as much as asks. Dick eats quietly until Damian asks him the question, to which Dick replies without looking up, "Yep." He eats another bite and sets his fork down, and looks at Damian. "First step is that I will take on those of your father's duties that I can. Secondly, I intend on accelerating your training, so no more soda for you after that one. I do not intend to withold your birthright from you, but you are not yet ready for it, so I am going to prepare you for it." Dick sips from his water glass, "Do you have any questions." He is suprisingly calm, but that could simply be resigning to what must be, as opposed to what they all want to be. Damian and Dick are sitting at the dinner table eating Christmas leftovers. Damian's are warm, Dicks are cold, much like the men, just backwards. When Dick actually has a plan, Damian is surprised, but not as surprised as when he's told that he wasn't going to stand in the way of his 'birthright' and that he intended to accelerate his training so the mantle of Batman could pass to Damian, sooner rather than later. "Are you insane?" Damian asks almost choking on his food. "Me? Batman? Father said that was yours, and as far as I'm concerned you're welcome to it, Grayson," he stops coughing long enough to add. "Though thank you for recognizing it as mine. Anyhow, I've called some allies about the problem, hopefully Father will not be, as he is, for that long." *DING DONG* goes the front doorbell, at which point Alfred lets the visitor in. "If you're looking for Master Damian or Master Dick, they're in the dining room. I believe Master Tim is off the premises though?" A few seconds later, Kara peeks her head in the dining room. "Hey? I got a weird call from Damian, what's up?" "Not outside of the cave," Dick says sharply, "But even if that is the case, you are my heir until I state otherwise and will take over should I be unable to fulfill the duties. So you are to ready yourself for such an occasion. Deal with it." Dick resumes eating his food until the doorbell rings. The sleep-deprived Nightwing is certainly not wanting to deal with guests, though he is soon forced to with Kara poking her nose in. "Damian..." he says with a glare that could cut through granite. Damian glares across the table. "I'm not going to be Batman, that's stupid," but then Kara comes in and Dick is glaring at him. "And I thought Kara was the one who could shoot lasers from his eyes," he quips to his 'brother' before he gets up and welcomes Kara. "Yes, I did call," he says with a glance back at Dick. "Father ran into something that de-aged him, and I thought we could use some allies at this time. Especially ones with scientific knowledge some hundreds of years more advanced than our own." He delivers this all calmly then adds as if he remembers niceities exist. "Also, hello and welcome. There's food if you want it." Kara Zor-El comes in. "Wait... what? Bruce is de-aged? You mean like he's in diapers or something?" She starts looking around the house from where she is. Dick sighs and shakes his head, turning to look towards Kara, "Nah, more like just old enough to get his license. Memory is gone too, so that makes things even worse. Any idea what could have done this and if it is reversable? I would guess it isn't but then again I have seen crazier things." He shrugs and takes a drink from his cup. Damian nods when Dick elaborates. "Yes, about your age I'd guess," he says to Kara, when she starts to look around he adds. "In the Bat Cave," he says explaining why she can't see him just now. Kara Zor-El thinks a bit and shrugs. "Could be all sorts of things that could cause it. DNA resequencing, RNA reversion, tachyons.... there's magic too but I ... um... wouldnt be a person to ask about that. How exactly did it happen? Kara Zor-El is busy looking down at the ground. "Dangit, wish he didnt line the Batcave with lead like that." Dick says bluntly, "Giant beam of energy, I disabled it, he said something in Hindi, then he was 16ish, memory gone. Joker, Nanny, and Orphan-Maker were involved." He has no time to mince words, but he continues, "I am sure that this is obvious, but discretion is important. Until he is able to resume his duties, if he can, I am taking them on." Dick's tone indicates not displeasure, but resignation. Damian smiles "Father is, or rather, was like that," he says about the lead lining. "And yes, beam of energy from some carousel looking machine, which is currently in the custody of the GCPD," Damian adds to Dick's explanation. "So at least we can probably rule out magic." Kara Zor-El peers at Damian and Dick and walks over. "Soooooo.... Bruce's memories regressed to when he was 16? Wouldnt that mean he was starting the whole 'studying to learn to fight crime' thing at that time?" She listens to Dick. "Soooo you're going to be Batman for now?" She looks back at Damian. "And no one's gotten stabbed." She thinks for a moment. "Well that's good." Kara Zor-El rubs the back of her head a bit. "Think i'd be able to go check out the machine? I could probably just zip in and out before anyone notices. Get some idea of how it works, maybe? And even if I can't figure it out it's something." Dick nods, "Yep, he knew Alfred on sight, but not me. So that gives us a rough timeline to work with. So we can work with that." Damian mentions the carousel and Kara's note of wanting to sneak in and check it out, "That sounds good, we need all of the information on it to work with, find out the who, what, when, where, and how of that darn thing. Get our best tech people on it, and see if we can get some answers as soon as possible. All assets will be needed for this." "Yeah, about that time, he sounded like he was surprised to be back in Gotham when he woke up, like he should be somewhere else," Damian agrees with Kara about when in his Father's life he'd regressed to. "And yes if you can look at the machine, that'd be excellent, I can have a plate ready for you more or less in time for when you get back if you want," he says nodding to the dinner in front of him. Kara Zor-El nods a little. "Okay. I'll head over there now. Any chance you could tell me anything about what it looks like so I know what to look for? I'll try to make some quick sketches of the inside too." "Giant carousel thing with a busted lamp on the ceiling, didn't really get the best look at it, busy dealing with Nanny. But if there is anything you need, let us know. Want a camera for this?" "Giant carousel thing with a busted lamp on the ceiling, didn't really get the best look at it, busy dealing with Nanny. But if there is anything you need, let us know. Want a camera for this?" Dick finishes his water and tries, but fails, to relax in his chair. "It's large, so it'll likely be in the main evidence warehouse," Damian adds and rattles off the address before leaving to go get Kara some food for her return. Kara Zor-El nods. "No, no it's okay, I'll just draw the schematics afterwards." As Damian goes to do the food, Kara's left with a blur. Dick nods as Kara zooms off. He looks to see if he can spot Alfred to see his response to someone running in the house at such a speed, but fails to spot the bulter. Instead, Dick takes his plate over to the counter with his glass, leaving the plate by the sink to be washed later, and refilling the glass. Returning to the table, Dick looks at Damian, "I will be calling in some friends of my own for this. That being said, we need to keep the number of people small, but effective. I want to clear anyone else you intend on bringing into this." "Right," Damian says as he gets a plate ready and sticks it in the microwave, betting Kara will be back before it beeps. "Asked some people I know in New York if they'd heard of this Nanny and Orphan Maker before, but that's the limit of it. I didn't tell anyone but Kara about Father." Kara Zor-El is back before hte food is out of the microwave. Kara's again in the dining room with a bunch of papers and a pencil which seems to have been smoking a little. She puts the papers down on the table. "It's... really unusual, I'll say that much. Um... sorry for how long it took by the way... I was trying to get as much detail on the insides as possible, so I made 20 cross-sections of the machine in diagram form. And.... they're very intricate schematics she drew. By hand. In the 40 seconds she's been gone. Well, Damian is working as a team player, Dick is suprised. Kara's return catches him off-guard, he wasn't expecting her to be that quick. Dick isn't quite sure if what Kara says is sarcastic or sincere, but he does nod in thanks, "These will certainly prove useful. Did you notice anything familiar about them that we could use to track down the maker of such a machine?" Dick takes a drink from the glass. "I'm not dumb," Damian says to Dick about the whole not telling people thing. "You taking over for Batman only works if people think he's still, himself," he says there is a whoosh of air as Kara returns and Damian smiles glancing back at the microwave, still 80 seconds left. "What took you so long?" he quips anyhow, because it's fun to push buttons. Then back to Dick "That's why I wanted to track down the people who did this, if they start blabbing to the rest of Gotham about what they did, then we're going to have a bigger fight on our hands than we want." He peeks into the dining room to have a look at the papers nodding his approval. "Food's almost ready, do you want a soda?" Kara Zor-El looks at Dick and sits down. "Oh yeah.... I probably could have just looked at it and drew it here but I figured... you know.... take my time." She seems to be genuine about the idea that she took a long time. For her, at least. She pauses. "And I had to stop on the way out because some criminal tried to make a break for it when one of the police was taking off his handcuffs. Don't worry, no one noticed." Dick smiles a little at Damian's insistance on not being dumb, "I know, but an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I want you to focus on these people you are so intent on tracking, if you need anything, take it if we have it, just let me know that it is out." He turns to Kara, "I am actually very happy about this, no doubt we can get these analyzed and thank you very much!" Dick sets the water on the counter. Kara Zor-El looks at the schematics a little. "Honestly, this stuff is... really different. Really out there. And that's coming from me. I didn't see any sort of makers mark, and I looked at it at the atomic level. It's like someone designed it to specifically not be traceable. It's probably going to take a while for you guys to figure it out, especially from the diagrams here without the actual machine." Damian brings in the food to Kara. "Looks... strange," he decides on. He's no tech wizard, but he'd expect things to look more uniform less cobbled together. Then he glances up at Dick "Really?" he blurts out before he regains his composure and nods, crossing his arms "Should have let me do it yesterday," he grumps. "But, fine, I'll play it on hard mode." Clearly he's actually spent some time near Tim if he's using video game references now. "Huh," Dick frowns, "I'll run this by a couple others then, but the fact the Joker has it means something, so we need can put the Joker and Nanny at the center of our search, who they could have contacted to get /this/." He gestures at the paper. Damian's remark receives a sharp, "You were in no shape to go. You also aren't going alone. Take Carrie or Tim with you whenever you go out, for safety." Kara Zor-El starts eating the food. Then stops. "Whmfh?" She then swallows. "Wait, who's nanny?" Damian had returned to his food but he looks up when Kara asks her question. "Never saw her before, and she wasn't in the Bat Computer, but she's short and looks like an egg with arms and legs," he pauses. "That's not a slimily either, she literally looks like an egg. She seemed to be the one who made the machine and until Carrie zapped him with EMP, she had a cyborg or a robot named Orphan Maker guarding her." Kara Zor-El blinks. "Like... an egg and a cyborg that makes ... orphans." She peers at her food to make sure no one slipped her red kryptontie so that she isnt hearing words that are different than what people are saying. Red Kryptonite does all sorts of weird things after all. Nope. Nothing like that. Dick nods, "That is actually about as accurate as it can be described. Very strange, and very dangerous. On the upside, it is rather noticable. Not sure on the status of Orphan Maker, but nothing we can do about that for now." He picks up his glass and takes a seat at the table, "With regards to that, we will need to watch them and the Joker, because whatever happened, the Joker is not going to be happy to have lost his new toy, and may go to the source to get a new one." Damian nods. "Trust me Kara, I was there and I'm still not sure I believe it," he says to the Kryptonian, with the faintest of smirks. He moves some food around on his plate. "Seems like Joker got what he wanted, no-more Batman to bother him." << Follows: Never According to Plan Continued In: Overwhelmed >>